Painting Commences

A heavy weekend and week but we've achieved quite a lot. About 10 hours work apiece over the weekend. John made a major dent in the work he has on his "To Do' list, and I got hot and bothered under a dust mask. The worst thing about the sanding is that it's lead paint so we have to take extra care in donning protective clothes and in cleaning up afterwards. We have now started using wet-and-dry sandpaper to avoid dust, and it is really good. We'll use it in future even where there isn't lead about.

On Saturday night Céret turned on the music. It was a special music weekend, so we found out when a band complete in outrageous colours and flashing lights set up in the church square below us at 9pm. The band's clothing was loud, eccentric, and not entirely coordinated, rather like their music! We felt very spoilt to have a box-seat on the top level overlooking our church square. More and more people came in, and with a dozen or so little children jigging around to the music, everyone was having lots of fun. We decided to go for a wander around town and came across no fewer than seven other bands at various points in the centre of town, all turning out good beats. Best of all was the discovery that a great blues band had set up in Place des Neuf Jets, the square below our new apartment, so we went upstairs there and had a grandstand view there! It was magic, no more, no less.  Finally got to bed around midnight, as excited as ever about getting stuck into the work needed on our new place. We felt very spoilt to have two such great vantage points.

I have to admit to having a wee siesta this afternoon. A quiet hour having a coffee at Bar Pablo was very welcome - Sundays are so quiet and relaxing here. Little happens, conversations are quiet, not many people are about and it's the best time of the week.

We are having a nice cooler spell now, down to mid 20s from low 30s. It’s very pleasant. We have actually painting on the French doors over the square, and have been surprised how well the tired old windows and shutters seem to be coming up. There's a bit of clever mending required on the shutters as a few are actually coming apart (they are presumably 152 years old after all) but they should be retrievable.

We are loving speaking French – both of us. Karen has been trapped with French people from time to time recently, and is doing well. We know so many people here that we just stop and talk to, a lovely thing about being in a small place where you see the same people time after time.

Karen has just finished and sent off the Antarctic diary she has been editing, so we are onto painting more often now. My work continues to be busy, which is good as far as money goes, but not so good with Alastair here for 2-3 weeks from Saturday.

On the construction front, progress continues well. The plumber was in on Monday as promised, and had finished this round by Tuesday lunchtime. The builder was back to put the last of the plasterboard up, and a scaffold has appeared out the back to install the aircon unit. The plasterer starts Monday, then the floors go down, and the tiling begins. It is very exciting. We are aware that it has to be done before August when France shuts for business, also we have deliveries (fridge, washer, dishwasher) arriving sometime, and it would be much better if the floors were already down. The stairs to the mezzanine can't go in until the floors are down either. There's a lot of logistics involved in a job like this, and as usual there are deadlines that keep the pressure on. One day we will do a project which doesn't have deadlines...maybe.

We are ready to open a branch of Céret Handyman Supplies. We've collected a massive range of stuff for the new apartment, the main ones being the cooking appliances, almost all our lights, 3 ceiling fans, all the plumbing fittings, bathroom fixtures and paint. The latter is a fearsome price in France, and awful, but there's not much we can do about it.

French Bureaucracy - If You Don't Laugh, You'll Cry

What an entertaining time we have had lately. I'll cut straight to the chase - see what you can make of this...

Six weeks ago we applied to the local mairie, and through them Batiment de France (the equivalent of NZ's Historic Places Trust), for permission to put two Velux skylights in the roof of our new apartment. Because the roof is not visible from our square, we were told by the local council (who you apply through) there would be no problem.

We received a registered letter a few days ago from the mairie giving permission to install our skylights. Great! Hang on - another sentence - "the maximum size allowed is 55cm by 78cm". Absurd - they are tiny, in fact almost the smallest size Velux make.. We thought the size of the skylight couldn't possibly be of any significance because they can't be seen. Obviously it was not the simple matter we thought it was.

Next step - we visited our friendly maitre d'oeuvre (master of works) and showed him the letter. He basically said "C'est absurde". He couldn't believe how small the skylights had to be, and his work involves putting in submissions on behalf of clients all the time. His advice - just put in bigger skylights anyway because no-one (either Batiment de France or local council) will ever check. 

The following day we drove into Perpignan, found the Batiment de France office and discussed our concerns with the very pleasant receptionist. He understood what we were after and ran upstairs to discuss it with one of the architects. He was a little less sprightly coming back downstairs and commenced to explain the following:

• It was agreed our roof (and hence skylights) couldn't be seen from our square, but....
• Our building can be seen from the church tower (as can all the buildings in the historic centre of town of course), therefore heritage rules apply. Note that no-one has access to the church bell tower, therefore no-one can cast their eye over towards our building from above.
• Even though our building can be seen from the church tower, we are allowed skylights, albeit small. 
• John then had the brilliant and logical notion that we could install a decent sized skylight on the far side of our pitched roof - which definitely cannot be seen from the church tower. 
• Alors, it apparently makes no difference. Our building can be seen from the church tower so we can't have a larger skylight anywhere. The whole building is covered by the rules, visible or not. There is only one approved size, i.e. small.

Time to place a fixed smile on one's face, thank the receptionist for his help, and exit the front door to take a few measured breaths back on the footpath. OK, be thankful we can have two petite skylights, but the logic remains absolutely illogical.

On returning to Céret we gave our news to our maitre d'oeuvre. He just shook his head in disgust and then showed us an approval he'd received from Batiment de France for new large French doors to the rear of a building in the historic quarter. He was told because the doors are on the rear of the building, i.e. not seen from the public lane, they got consent. It makes no sense - the building can be seen from the church tower. It clearly depends who you talk to as to whether you can do anything on the far side of a building or not.

C'est la vie. We decided we just have to live with it and won't bother trying to get someone else in the organisation to review the decision. The small skylights would actually be OK, just not as nice as larger ones.

What a rollercoaster!! As our builder keeps saying to us - you are in France, everything is always complicated. It's normal. 

Tuesday - looks like a dog's breakfast

Friday - all ready for plastering

Today has been a pretty straight-forward day, and a huge step forward. All this week the electricians have been running wiring, as against last week when they were running the conduit. In France electricity is run as individual wires inside a shared flexible conduit. The builder has been finishing off the plasterboard in the living room. And the plumber finally arrived on Thursday to check the job before a Monday start. Now at weekend, every room has wiring, every room has plasterboard, the stopping of joints has begun and the plumber is finally available. At this rate when Alastair arrives in a week's time he'll be able to start painting with us.

There's another small issue popped up concerning the ventilation for the apartments below. The builder has put in pipes within our floor, and then up behind a new wall, to take ventilation up to the roof again. Unfortunately the size of them is such that the bathroom floor must be slightly higher than we prefer. We want what is known here as a douche Italienne - a wet floor on the shower with no step or shower tray, just the bathroom floor running into the shower area. We are left with two choices - lift the shower area a little and have a step up to it, or have all the bathroom floor slightly higher and have a tiny step at the door. It will have to be the latter.

Rebuilding inside an old shell is always going to be a compromise. Thankfully there is going to be very little that has any serious effect. There have been so many small compromises - all the walls being moved in to provide insulation and room for services, windows being shrunk for similar reasons, the skylight issue, now this bathroom floor thing, the positioning of the toilet to work with existing drainage, and so on.

Irrespective of all the hurdles, we are utterly thrilled with how it is all turning out. So much so that when we got there after work had finished for the day we were so excited that we simply had to invite a friend up to share it! The living room and mezzanine in particular make a really generous and interesting space, and the feel of it all is everything we were hoping for, and more. Can't wait to start finishing things off.

I have to say that I think we have coped very well! Despite all the frustrations, the fact that all discussions have taken place in French, the complexity of the project and the amount of other things taking up our time, we have survived, and remain cheerful. We've gone into this with our eyes open, partly due to having watched so many House in the Sun and Homes from Hell programmes, and partly just from experience, so we have only ever been temporarily stressed.

We also have Antoine, the macon, to thank for his part in the job. Despite being near impossible to get hold of, and never returning calls or emails, we always manage to bump into him in this little town sooner or later. He is a great organiser, has our project at heart, and almost always makes great decisions, or waits for us when we definitely need to decide. We are getting on well with all the team on the job as well, and are up there once or twice every day during working hours, and always after 5pm to track progress. They are all good workers, and like Antoine have our interests at heart.

One thing we have recently realised, is that when we started, we were thinking of the job as a renovation. In reality it is a new build, inside a restricted and complicated space, with all sorts of restraints on services, and therefore way more complex. The only easier thing about this job than a genuine new build is that it has been waterproof from Day 1. If we decide to do another project in France, and at this stage we are certainly not put off, we will be very experienced and will be able to anticipate the problems a day or two earlier than on Place des Neuf Jets!

We are making mental notes about "Things We Have Learned", and what pitfalls to avoid. In amongst everything we're catching quite a bit of the Rugby World Cup, and this morning arrived at Bar Pablo in time to watch the All Blacks play England for the third time. We enjoyed the 'bravo' as we were leaving, with large smiles on our faces, from some of the old codgers who were also watching the game.

The temperature rose to 33 degrees this afternoon but that was not enough to deter me from donning my dust mask and getting stuck into some good old sanding on the doors and door frames in our apartment. We are so excited with the way it is coming together. John has been busy doing torrid computer work all afternoon so between us we have been sweating quite a bit! If we can put in a solid morning's work tomorrow we might be able to get the three major doors facing the square all sanded and primed. That would be a major gain. 

We are very limited with when we can work on-site as it's not fair to the builders to be there during the working day, and we would get in each other's way anyway. Come 5pm at night, and hot temperatures, we have not yet been enticed up to the apartment to set ourselves on the  prep work. Also, we're really constrained at other times by the restaurants in the square below us. I had to have the windows and shutters closed today so the noise of the sanding machine wouldn't disturb the hundreds of lunchtime diners below us. By around 4pm they had pretty much left so that left a couple of hours' window of opportunity to use the machine on the outside of the doors and do some 'visible' hand sanding before the evening diners start turning up. At least I could still hear the live jazz band in the square below when I was doing indoor work this afternoon. It's pretty cool to have a jazz band to listen to while you work. We think we are still on track to move into the apartment in mid-August with most of the work completed by then so we are very happy.

Just as good is news that Alastair arrives next Saturday and is looking to stay with us for at least two weeks. He's keen to do some manual labour for a change from his normal project work so I'm sure we can arrange something suitable. It would be awesome if we could get some rooms painted but that depends totally on how much plastering the builder's mate gets done this week.

We popped in downstairs to see the French couple who have renovated the apartment immediately below us in a similar manner to ours (after seeing what we had done). They are a lovely couple. She is from Céret and has a mother here but they now live in Paris, though with a holiday place in the Lot. They are very keen for us to visit them in the Lot sometime. They expect to only use downstairs at odd times during the year, but will be back for the Feria festival in mid-July and again in August. We are very much enjoying meeting such a range of people.

Ou est le plombier?

Well, as the title suggests, the plumber has yet to make his entrance. John and I are not too hassled (yet), but our builder and electrician are. Their work is now being held up so I'm pretty sure, or as sure as can be, that the plumber will be on deck tomorrow. Maybe, normalement. 

We didn't spend much time on-site last week but spent hours and hours walking the aisles in the huge handyman stores in Perpignan. That makes up our main form of exercise at the moment!! We had a huge day on Wednesday, mainly just firming up on what things to buy and where. Raced home at 6:45pm, which gave us just enough time to bolt down a takeaway falafel for dinner and scoot to the new theatre for a Spanish flamenco performance. It was a colourful Catalan affair, with the dancers being local women and their young daughters. It was great fun to watch, full of audience interaction and perfect as a 'welcome to our new theatre' performance, one of the dozen or so free concerts the local council is funding.

Flamenco dancing at the Céret theatre.

We felt very weary on Thursday so contented ourselves with our computer jobs again. It was also very hot: 37 degrees. Summer is here and it's gorgeous. I love coming out of the big air-conditioned stores and being enveloped in a 'hot glove'. Enough - I don't want those currently in winter climes to become jealous, or, worse still, start to yawn!

Next day, another 6 hours in Perpignan including 2 hours going through our kitchen plans with one of the staff at Leroy Merlin and ordering all the bits and bobs. What a nice man who took us through the plans and helped us with what is possible and what isn't. Almost without exception, everyone we have had to deal with on this project has been super helpful and pleasant. Our builder will be very pleased to hear the kitchen is now ordered, though it won't be installed until early August. However, a lot of prep work has to be done by him before then, including levelling the kitchen floor (and indeed all floors in the apartment) and laying tiles. Next job for us - choose the tiles!

Friday night was definitely one of R&R. A 15 minute walk to the outskirts of Céret brought us to the house of Marianne (one of our Norwegian friends). She has lived here for about 11 years, and recently Mats (a lovely Swedish guy) has moved in with her. They are a neat couple and we had a wonderfully casual and chatty evening, finally wandering home at 1:30am. I'm not sure where our stamina is coming from - we didn't socialise this much or so late in Nelson so perhaps the air is richer in the northern hemisphere and we don't tire as quickly in the evenings?

"Starters" at Marianne and Mats' place.

Main course (salmon, lobster, cod and asparagus). Oh la la!

Of course, that's rot because we crashed and didn't wake up until 9:30am on Saturday morning, just in time to turn on the TV and watch the All Blacks play England. What an entertaining game, and so much better than last week's shocker when we just managed to scrape through with a win. Finally got to the market at 11:30am, bought a few veges and retreated to the shade in Bar Pablo to watch the first half of the Aussie vs. France game. We weren't quite sure who to support - France or our fellow Antipodeans? Quite a dilemma for us, easily resolved by supporting both.

We have enjoyed a quieter weekend, but have been reminded of something. It's taken a Skype with Bella and Nic to bring it home. They work long and hard during the week, and now and again will treat themselves to a weekend away, sometimes to Sydney (when Nic goes there for work), or maybe just somewhere on Mornington Peninsula close to Melbourne. They know how to take time to totally chill out and put work right out of their minds for a day or so. John and I are not good at that - we do computer or restoration work in the weekends just as much as during the week. If we spend too much time on one job then the other suffers so it's very rare we do neither. I think we need to take a leaf out of Bella and Nic's book and take some days totally off.

Having said that, we Skyped with Alastair this morning and it looks like he will be flying in at the end of June. We are planning to take the opportunity to prowl the country on some new explorations, sample new French fare, spend a day or two in Spain and just enjoy each other's company. Who knows when we will next see Alastair? He will leave us to go backpacking in South America before taking up his new job in San Francisco in October. 

A great Skype with Bella and Nic this morning and a phone call with my Dad in Auckland topped off a great 'family check-in' during the last 24 hours. Dad turned 91 today and sounded in great spirits on the phone. He loved the present we left for him - a cup complete with family photo from his 90th party.

Now Tuesday, and some ups and downs on the project over the last two days. No plumber on Monday, no plumber on Tuesday. On Monday we did manage to order the dishwasher and clothes washer/dryer. The latter is a combo unit to save a second 60cm x 60cm footprint. We really want the two to be delivered in August, but after ringing up the retailer, you can only change the delivery date after you have the order in, so let's hope the cartage people will play ball. If not, it will be a hassle for the builders to have them on site early. The delivery includes taking them up to the 3rd floor, not something we are prepared to do ourselves.

The builder's men are rapidly approaching the point they will be held up by the missing plumber - they might stretch to the end of the week but perhaps not. Work on the mezzanine floor started today with Antoine turning up with his Bobcat to load in more plasterboard and timber. He was a little uncomfortable, having fallen 3½ metres off a ladder in the weekend, and with plenty of bruising, but thankfully nothing worse. Had a great conversation with him, as he has a good sense of humour, and most importantly a nice clear voice and accent.

At lunchtime, we got a registered letter from the mairie to say our skylights had been approved by Batiments de France. Only problem was that they had shrunk the allowed size from our requested size to something less than half. They've got so small that the glass area after taking off the structure has got down to 0.22m² each. We were very annoyed. They can't be seen from the ground, so what difference does it make if they are small or large? Went to our local friendly maitre d'oevre who agreed it was absurd, and suggested we could ignore it and install the next size up. All very well, as neither the mairie or Batiments de France will ever come and check, but it may become an issue when we come to sell, whenever that may be. So not an option we will take this time. So Plan B is to go into Perpignan to visit B de F and see if being New Zealanders won't make a difference, as is has so often before.

Back on the positive side, we went up after close of play on the site this evening, to find most of the mezzanine flooring is down. Wow! It is a really good space up there. The ceiling is rather close, as expected, and I'm better being at one end than the other due to the slope of the beams, but it is going to be excellent. Another good thing, we have realised that the size of the skylights is less of a concern than we imagined. We had though we may be able to see scenery horizontally through them, but the reality is that we are only going to see sky, so the size is of much less importance than we thought, though we will still try to increase it.

Nice view down from the mezzanine

It Always Comes Back to Communication

Never before have we socialised so much! Friday, Sunday and Monday nights last week we were out with friends at various homes for dinner parties, and Saturday night was the Cherry Festival open-air dinner. It's been loads of fun, but I think we were all thinking it was taking its toll a little towards the end. Many of our friends have now upped-stakes and returned to Australia or England, but with a number to return again in a few months' time. 

We have cherished having a few quiet evenings at home during the week but it didn't last long. We invited a Norwegian/Swedish couple to dinner on Wednesday night and enjoyed a very pleasant evening with them. Last night (Saturday) we were invited to the home of French friends on the outskirts of Céret and spent an amazing evening with two French couples and another Italian/French couple. They were all very capable in English but French was spoken most of the time. It was brilliant for John and me, but my level of concentration was waning well before midnight. As with our other experiences of home French cuisine thus far, the meal was exquisite, with a multitude of courses, tasty Catalan cooking (e.g. the meat dish was sanglier or wild boar), the banter lively and cheerful, and it lasted over four hours. Home to bed by 1am. 

Needless to say, we have only ourselves to blame for sadly deflated energy levels today. We had hoped to spend at least one day this weekend vigorously sanding the woodwork on the windows of our apartment but we have made do with computer work and the odd quiet coffee at Bar Pablo. I am finally getting towards the end of compiling and editing my father-in-law's Antarctic diary but now John has the onerous task of a final proofread right through. I've inserted a couple of hundred illustrations and photos and it's taken a lot of juggling. John's work also continues apace but our new 'partner' in Nelson is starting to take on some of the workload. 

New frames in, windows back in place

Now - to progress on the apartment..... I'm not sure where to begin. It has been a week of potentially serious communication issues, not between John and I (of course!) but between us and various other parties.

It began with the new steel stud walls which are being placed just inside the existing exterior walls, to allow new insulation and all the services services to be inserted. With each new wall installed around the exterior of the apartment we are losing a significant amount of space from each room, from at least one and often two walls. So be it, but we don't want to lose any more than we have to. We asked the building labourers to relocate one of the wall frames he was erecting as it was further out than it needed to be, taking an extra 2-3 centimetres of depth from the whole 5m frontage of the living room. He claimed the original wall was bowed and the new wall needed to be a good 5cm in front of it. We disputed this, and on finally eyeing the wall he was forced to agree with us. Anyway, with lots of deliberate banging and crashing and unnecessary ripping of some of the new electrics off the wall, he began dismantling the framework. We smelt victory and made a tactical withdrawal. A couple of peace-offerings in the form of pastries for their lunch later on and things were back on track by evening.

We had been trying to get hold of Antoine, the boss of the project, but he is impossible to get hold of via his office, and he never returns phone calls or emails. We wanted to chat with him about a few things so set off, yet again, to walk to his depot on the outskirts of Céret. With a good bit of luck we managed to catch him just as he was driving out of the yard off to another job. However, he didn't look happy! He jumped out of the cab and strutted somewhat aggressively towards us. Oops! What now? He asked what the story was with the plumber. Good question - we were wondering why the plumber hadn't started yet. Antoine implied we had sacked him and were employing another plumber, contrary to our clear agreement with him and the plumber. Oh la la! Non! C'est pas vrai. That's not true. After much hand-waving, denials (on our part) and fixed smiles it appears that the problem was one of communication. We had not dropped Antoine's plumber at all. 

In fact, at Bar Pablo on Saturday a friend had mentioned to John that she was having problems with her water (not personally but her apartment's cylinder) and John by chance had spied the friendly plumber who had worked on our first apartment. He jacked up that Didier would go to Marie-Louise's place and investigate the problem. Didier must have later gone to Antoine and said he had been talking with John, and perhaps implied he'd been asked to do the plumbing work on our new apartment. We managed to convince Antoine that this was not the case, we had indeed accepted the contract for his partner plumber months ago and were standing by it, and had no intention of involving Didier. Phew!! All's well. Antoine would sort it with his plumber, and also tell his labourers to install the walls exactly where we wanted them.

The mezzanine will be a lovely big space

On to encounter No. 3 on Friday. We were up in the new apartment that afternoon chatting over a few things with Antoine and the plumber when up the stairs came a couple we had never seen before. They made a beeline to John and I and introduced themselves as the new owners of the first two floors of our four floor building. I'll let John take over from here ...

They were a couple from Paris (there's a problem right there) , and started by saying that it was going to be very expensive for them to meet the new French requirement for a permanent 24 hour ventilation system in all rented accommodation, as it would mean running the extract out at ceiling level. Could we find a cheaper solution using the existing extract pipes which ended at our floor level? After a little bit, he presumably decided we were dumb foreigners and could be bullied by threats of law and rights and existing uses and so on. He told us that we had to assume the responsibilities of the previous owner who should have left the means for extracting air from 2 floors down. He became progressively more and more agitated, mostly to his wife (who spoke perfect English), but from time to time to me as well. Antoine the builder was shaking his head and muttering about Parisians - a breed of people more detested down south than any true foreigner. We could actually help him out, but he wanted us to pay for everything from the pipe at floor level to the chimney above.

Thinking about his performance, we think it was largely an act to scare us into doing things at our expense rather than his. Monday being a holiday, we did some digging on Tuesday to find out the rules. It is a bit of a grey area, there being no clear document setting out who owns what in the building, or indeed what happens in cases like this. The agent we bought it from is in no doubt that both parties bought our apartments "dans l'etat" meaning "as is, where is". He therefore bought his part with no existing means of external ventilation, and thus he has no rights to expect us to provide the extract. We next scheduled an appointment with the notaire, the semi-legal person who oversees sales here in France to get a legal opinion.We then bumped into friends who let us know where our vendor works - she is an agent at another agency now. It was her who arranged the sale of his part to him we think. She too was clear. He knew what he was buying, and was looking for a cheaper option by bullying us. He had already harangued her several times for 3 hours at a time. Not a pleasant man at all, all bluster and bravado. We are OK with him sending the pipes through our floor, and up the wall behind our new wall (it wouldn't make any difference to us) provided he pays and that there is good sound and fire proofing. So that is what she is taking back to him. We'll see where it all goes!

On another related theme, we have been trying to sort out the vicious capital gains tax we will have to pay on our sale of the first apartment. As non-EU citizens, profits are taxed at 49%, with a temporary reduction to 36% if settled by 31 August this year. We did well with the price, and the tax to pay is significant and well worth avoiding if at all possible. You can take off purchase costs, sale costs, and bills from French-registered tradesmen. Amazingly, you can't take off bills for materials, for example our kitchen. Nor is there any allowance for our own labour, or inflation. It's a vicious and unfair regime, particularly as non-EU residents pay a 15% social security component (for health costs, benefits etc.) for which we receive nothing. The one way out of the tax is to have it declared as our primary residence, which requires 2 years of some sort of declaration, or maybe tax returns, or maybe something else. The biggest problem is that it all depends on the individual notaire's interpretation - there are no clear guidelines or rules put out by the French tax department.

We have EU friends who are going through a similar situation, and they have been asking the powers-that-be for rulings. The tax people say yes you can include bills for materials, though the notaires say not. They are seeing a friendly notaire soon to try to get to the bottom of it. Another ray of hope for us is that, according to the tax department anyway, you can sign a declaration that you are normally resident in France, even though you may not be paying French tax. Two year's worth of these makes your home your primary home. By August we will have spent more time here than not for each of 2013 and 2014, so we will be investigating this option!

All this arguing and uncertainty has been thoroughly entertaining, and hasn't got us down at all, thankfully. It's just the sort of thing you have to be prepared to deal with in France, and no doubt many other countries too. It does, however, take up inordinate amounts of time to sort out. Much of this has taken place in French, so it's a great way of becoming more fluent, fast. The only issue that could have had nasty and permanent effects was the plumber situation, and that has been sorted. The rest is all about money, and if it costs us some here and there, that's just what it is.

On a lighter note, on Monday night we went to a chamber music concert in the new theatre here in Céret. It has just opened this week and has started with a series of free concerts. It was a really good concert in a lovely facility. How a town of 8000 people can afford a beautiful fully-equipped tiered theatre for perhaps 500 people is beyond us, but we are not complaining. It's good to get a bit of "kultcha".

And while all the shenanigans goes on, the workers continue at speed on the apartment. plasterboard is going up at the moment, and the plumber is due tomorrow or Thursday. Rooms are looking like rooms now, and we continue to be really pleased with how it is coming together.

Cherry Festival

I'm not quite sure where to begin in recounting the events of this week. As I'm writing this the resonant sounds of a brass band are blasting up from the main street near us. The Cherry Festival started today and the town has been awash with cherries, people, market stalls, bands, 'refreshments' and sun all day. And things are still heating up. No pun intended. The weather did start fairly iffy but the sun has won out and it's looking good for the open-air meal we are booked in for tonight. Everything has turned 'cherry', including window displays, banners, costumes, beer and a huge variety of baking at the numerous stalls. Our hope was to have a 'quiet' weekend this Saturday and Sunday after a very busy week.

One of the  many cherry stalls

Monday saw two electricians taking up residence in our new apartment and soon installing all manner of cabling for our two air conditioning units. They were soon joined by two more electricians who installed a fuse box and wove what seemed like oceans of conduit in every room. We had prepared an electrical plan to give them, but John and I spent from 8am until 5.30pm on-site, marking the specific locations we wanted the power points and light fittings. No pressure, right. 

The next day we had to tell them where the dishwasher, oven and other appliances for the kitchen were going. Being only two weeks into 'the build' at this stage we hadn't quite expected to have to have our kitchen planned. We were up to midnight that night rearranging the little squares of paper trying to confirm the best position for everything. Came up with a plan and hope it works out. We now have to book an appointment with the kitchen people in Leroy Merlin (where we plan to buy our kitchen units) to make sure it will all work. Fingers crossed. As a part of a build in France, it is compulsory here to have a fancy ventilation system that runs 24 hours a day ventilating the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. We are hoping to sneak it in the gaps between the old and new walls but it's quite complicated.

To cut a long story short, by the end of Wednesday, all the wiring was virtually complete. I think we've mentioned before that France has a staggering number of public holidays. They've already had two Thursdays off in May (and therefore typically take the Friday as well as a 'pont' or bridge). The same thing happened this week, but this time we were very happy because it's given us time for a little breather.

With no workers on-site John and I skipped our computer work and got stuck into some real work on the apartment. I've been worried that at the rate the builders are going, they'll be finishing off the internal walls and reinstating the window frames very soon. I wanted to get as much prep work done on the frames while they were out (and we could lay them flat). Hence, I spent most of Friday scraping off paint and then sanding the backs of the three main window frames that will face onto the main square. John helped towards the end of the day, after concentrating his efforts on finishing up on the exposed rock wall. Exhausted but happy at 5pm we dragged ourselves home. 

Work begins on scraping the old paint off the first window frame.

A quick shower and a plan to get more undercoat and a new paint scraper for our next effort on Monday. If we were to have any chance of finding a car park again we had to head off to the local bricolage because thousands come to Céret for the cherry festival. So, a quick trip before 7pm and we had our goodies. Next, straight out the door to a gathering at a friend's house (along with 10 others) for a convivial evening of food, wine and good company. Sitting down to a table that seats 12 was quite amazing. By the time we left at midnight I was just about falling asleep. 

This morning was very hard work getting up, either because of the effects of last night, the aching muscles from the hard labour yesterday, but probably a combination of both. The town was heaving by mid-morning and it proved a real struggle to find our favourite vege, olive and baking stalls because there were so many extra stalls set up. Finally managed to find grab some chairs with mates for a coffee at Bar Pablo, accompanied by one of the bands in full swing immediately next to us. All good fun. 

Bar Pablo with friends, one a Kiwi, bands in full voice opposite.

I've forgotten to mention two things. One is the signing of our sale documents and the other is an apéro with a man who would have liked to buy our apartment. First, we met up with our purchaser (a very nice Swedish woman) at the notaire's office on Wednesday morning and signed all the appropriate papers. A copy of these will now be sent out by the notaire and, once received, will start the seven day pull-out period. After that both parties are bound by the contract However, we have no doubts she is keen to stick with it. We sealed the deal with coffee after the signing and then she came back to our place to confirm which pieces of furniture she wants to buy from us. All extremely satisfactory from both sides.

That night saw us driving up our valley at 6pm to have apéro with an Englishman (80 years plus) who had viewed our apartment earlier and, though very taken it, conceded it wasn't large enough for himself and his 500+ books. We hit it off with each other at the time and hence the invitation to chat at his place over a drink and nibbles. He's an interesting man, widowed for many years, with grown-up children spread around the world, including a daughter running a restaurant in Governor's Bay, Canterbury. He's lived in NZ for a number of years and has fond memories of it. Anyway, we spent a very pleasant few hours with him and are keen to invite him back for a meal sometime, possibly with Liz, an English woman whose company we really enjoy.

However, the highlight of the week has to be the cherry festival, and since it is now Sunday, I can report on the antics of the open-air meal last night. It is probably easiest to sum it up with the video below. We had a group of 20, with the total number of diners being probably around 400. The meal was wonderful (charcuterie for entrée, leg of duck and mushroom sauce for main, with cherry clafoutis for dessert. Wine, coffee and bread included, all the for grand sum of €20 (about NZ$32). The band playing was enthusiastic to say the least, with plenty of people clapping and dancing away on their chairs (moi included). Great fun and a late night.

Open-dinner kicks off quite sedately.

But gets into the swing of things as night falls.

Today the major spectacle were the 'castellers', who build human pyramids. This traditionally represents solidarity within the community. They climb up to be four layers high, with the little girls at the very top (wearing crash helmets!). It's pretty impressive.

The castellers - about 20 people provide the base level support